I can’t believe it is September already. The weather will soon be getting cooler, the leaves will change colour and millions of Canadian students are heading back to school.

For those in post-secondary education, many may be preoccupied with their prospects for work upon graduation. Headlines on youth unemployment abound, while at the same time, many small business owners can’t find the people they need to put their products or services to market.

In fact, the latest “Help Wanted” report issued by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), showed nearly 290,000 full- and part-time private sector jobs went unfilled for four months or more in the second quarter of this year.

While the overall job vacancy rate dropped to 2.4%, only larger businesses saw any benefits; firms with fewer than four employees saw an increase in their vacancy rate to 4.5%.

Many are puzzled by this finding and even some well-respected economists suggest that Canada isn’t experiencing a skills or labour shortage. But try telling that to employers in Saskatchewan — the province with the highest reported job vacancy rate in Canada.

While Canada does report a high number of unemployed, there are industries and regions struggling to find employees. That is because, while some people really do struggle to find work, there are many others who choose to take a pass on available jobs.

I sympathize with young people who may not find work in the field they’ve been studying. After all, it can’t be fun to finish school being tens of thousands in debt, only to find the jobs available are in areas that didn’t require their degree in the first place. Possibly, we should be asking ourselves some important questions before we pressure all young Canadians to get university degrees.

A report I recently read on the PBS website about how South Carolina has worked to close the gap between young people looking for work and employers looking for the right skills had a couple of important takeaway points. The story notes that “the middle-skills gap has two main sources: (1) a general neglect of vocational education and (2) an unexamined notion that everyone should go to college, often interpreted as pursuing a baccalaureate degree.” It goes on to say that focusing on high school career and technical training, vocational education and apprenticeship programs were key.

These are similar messages to the ones I hear from small business owners every day. Many of the positions that go unfilled in Canada may not require the kinds of degrees and diplomas students are working so hard to get. I’m certainly not suggesting that post-secondary education isn’t important, but we need to develop strategies to fill all types of positions in our economy — for highly skilled, medium-skilled and even entry level jobs.

And if we’re not keen to look at a job that isn’t behind a computer in an air conditioned office, shouldn’t we allow employers to do whatever they can to find someone who is? This is why many small businesses have turned to the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program.

A member of CFIB in White River, Ont., tells us she would hire almost anyone willing to clean rooms in her hotel on the spot. Her Canadian staff is buckling under the weight of all the work due to labour shortages. The TFWs she hired from Jamaica and Mexico have been fantastic workers and were warmly received by her Canadian staff as they help share the workload.

Recently, I hosted a Twitter forum with Employment Minister Jason Kenney on the Canada Job Grant (CJG) and other employment issues. If designed properly, the CJG has real potential as, for the first time, it contemplates including the employer as a full partner in determining the type of training needed for a workplace. Given we are spending $2.5-billion on workplace training — primarily from Employment Insurance premiums — we need to be open to new ways to deliver better results.

While unemployment is a real problem in parts of Canada, so are shortages of qualified labour. If we’re serious about attempting to solve both problems, we need to take a careful look at all aspects of Canada’s training and labour market policies.

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If we want to create jobs, Canada needs to focus on the needs of small business job-creators

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